


Diet Pills

by bwblack



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-20
Updated: 2011-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-15 19:18:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/164110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bwblack/pseuds/bwblack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the Mycroft Meme,  Lestrade finds diet pills on Mycroft's desk, confrontation ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diet Pills

Mycroft hasn’t slept well. He never does when he’s alone. When he’s travelling he uses the time to catch up on work, reading, and email correspondence with people in compatible time zones. He’s never needed as much sleep as other people and there is always something, somewhere that needs to be done. Spending one third of ones life asleep is a waste. He thought so at five, he thinks so now, he plans to continue thinking that until the fiery auto crash that takes his life at 95.

If he's slowed down with age, needed more rest he's found ways to work around those problems.

When he’s at home, it’s different. It isn’t that he lets himself stay in bed until afternoon. He has responsibilities. He never shirks his responsibilities. It’s just that when he’s with Gregory he makes a concerted effort to spend some time focused solely on him, on them. He thinks it’s what he’s supposed to do in a relationship and it is no hardship.

Greg had been called away at quarter until midnight and not returned before Mycroft left for a 6 AM conference call. Mycroft had hoped they’d pass in the shower, hoped they’d meet up at the coffee pot. He’s surprised, however, when he steps into his office to find Lestrade siting in his desk chair with his feet up on the desk.

“Come to steal all the state secrets?” Mycroft’s eyes flit to his cabinet.

“Locked,” Lestrade assures him.

“Presumably, there is a key.”

“You’d never leave it here,” Lestrade shrugs.

“No, but you’d be surprised the security breaches in this building,” Mycroft scans his desk looking for anything amiss.

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“No, you wouldn’t, would you?” his breath catches when he doesn’t see the small pill bottles.

“Looking for these?” Lestrade opens his palm to reveal a pair of small dark bottles. “Diet pills?”

“They could be for my allergies.”

“You think they don’t do a course on basic pill identification at The Yard?“

“You’ve come here on a drugs bust, then?”

“I came to bring you breakfast,” Lestrade reaches behind him, picks up a bakery bag, and tosses it to Mycroft.  
He feels the crustiness of the pastry give way to a supple softness when he catches the bag. It’s still warm. As he brings it towards his nose he catches the toasty aroma of butter and chocolate. “You brought me breakfast?” Mycroft asks, touched despite the war going on in his head, the taste, the calories, the taste, the fat.

“Thought we could sneak in a few minutes before…” Lestrade breaks off, “but what’s the point?”

“I would have liked that,” Mycroft admits.

“Me too,” Lestrade laughs bitterly. “So what’s all this about?” He clinks the bottles together in hand.

“I have a prescription,” Mycroft protests.

“I gather you have more than one,” Lestrade accuses. “The pills in these bottles aren’t the same.”

“They are perfectly safe, Gregory.”

“They aren’t, Mycroft.”

“They keep me focused, awake.”

“Know what else does that? Sleep.”

“When would I possibly find time to sleep?”

“Night works for me,” Lestrade shrugs.

“Says a man that left the house in the middle of the night and hasn’t been back.”

“I’ll stick with caffeine.”

“The last stimulant you can buy without a prescription.”

“Healthy, active 17 year old kids aren’t falling over dead on the pitch due to too many triple espressos.”

“I’m not chasing after a football like some silly adolescent. I didn’t do that when I was an adolescent!”

“No, you’re past 40, not sleeping, barely eating, and taking whatever class c substance you got here… God, it is class c, isn’t it? It’s not something you picked up in some shady shop in Malaysia? Or worse something you ordered off the internet?”

“Those are legal.”

“These? As opposed to the ones locked in that cabinet filed between defense, missile and disposal, nuclear material?”

“Gregory!” Mycroft snaps.

“Why?”

“Why? Because, as you so kindly pointed out, I’m not a young man anymore. Even when I was a child my weight was a struggle. I’d be fine for a while subsisting on cafeteria food and forced calisthenics,” he shudders at the memory, “I’d gain when I went home for holiday breaks. But those were always so few and far between. The up and down got more pronounced once I entered university. I’d had my fill of cafeteria calories barely disguised as food. I may have over indulged, trying every suitable restaurant in this city. When my second favorite trousers would get too tight I’d cut back. I can be disciplined when I need to be. The weight would fall off and stay that way for a while.”

“We’ve been together a long time, Mycroft. I’m familiar with your cycles.”

Mycroft nods, “but it was getting harder. The last time I started expanding it took so long to get the weight off, too long. It all comes back so quickly. Just looking at this pain au chocolat, I’ll need to loosen my belt.”

“Welcome to middle age, Mycroft. I’m not as fit as I once was and seven more hairs have started coming in grey since I got here this morning.”

“Oh, poor Gregory…” Mycroft shakes his head, “aging towards absurdly attractive.”

Greg runs a hand through the hair. “You find my physical decline sexy?”

“As if you didn’t know,” Mycroft shakes his head, bitterly. “People flirt with you wherever you go. Women flirt with you. The girl who sold you this bread undoubtedly did so while licking her lips and giving a good giggle.”

“You’re jealous of advances from some teen girl? I’m old enough to be her father. Hell, I’m way too close to being old enough to be her grandfather.”

“My security team dubbed you, ‘Silver Fox’,” Mycroft continues.

“That’s absurd.”

“I keep imagining us a year or two from now, ‘Silver Fox and his Fat Fuck’.”

Lestrade snorts, Mycroft so rarely used vulgarity, “I’d have thought you’d say, ‘Silver Fox and his Pleasantly Plump Paramour’.”

“Portly Paramour,” Mycroft corrected.

“I wouldn’t mind.”

“I would.”

“Then do something about it.”

“I am doing something about it,” Mycroft gestures towards the pill bottles.

“Something constructive.”

“Who says they aren’t constructive? I’m rarely hungry, I have more energy, No more trouble getting up for middle of the night conferences in Hong Kong.”

“No more staying in bed with a certain, ‘Silver Fox’ and telling Hong Kong to piss off.”

“Greg…”

“They make you irritable and moody and they throw off your attention span. Given the kinds of meetings you are want to have, do you really need to be unnaturally irritable?”

“I can control my emotions, Gregory,” Mycroft hissed.

“Doing a brilliant job now, Love. So you’re in Russia. You’ve gone with Cameron, or whoever else is the flavor of the moment. He’s got high level meetings, publicity stunts, with Medvedev. You’re in some back room, some underground bunker with the real deal.”

“Putin,” Mycroft makes a face.

“Somebody who irritates you on your best day.”

Mycroft nods, curtly.

“You’re cold. You’re tired. You’ve been away a long time, already. You’re hopped up on amphetamines. He’s irritating. You’re jumpy. He pushes you. You push back and it’s all going according to some script you’ve both rehearsed a thousand times until that irritation, and low blood sugar push you too far. Maybe you say something wrong. Maybe you dissolve the wrong treaty. Maybe they throw you into some bunker never to be seen again…”

“Gregory, that won’t…” Mycroft tries to interrupt.

“Or maybe the diet pills, the caffeine, your high blood pressure and the stress of tense negotiation simply cause your heart to stop. It wouldn’t matter which. They couldn’t bring you back. You were never there officially. You never are. Either way, I wouldn’t know. All I’d know is you didn’t come home one day. You’d be gone and I’d be left to wonder if you were trapped and hurt somewhere fighting desperately to get home or if you were in some cold unmarked grave.”

“It wouldn’t…”

“I’d have nothing left.”

“You’re well provided for….”

“I don’t give a fuck, fat or otherwise, about your will.”

“I know,” Mycroft admits, quietly.

“I’ve had maybe six hours of sleep in the past thirty six. I spent all night running around this city with that brother of yours. I’ve been called an idiot fifteen times in four hours. I spent another two hours cleaning up the red tape nightmare that resulted when his friend shot my suspect. I’ve gotten two emails from your mother. She wants to know if I’ve heard that Elton John had a baby. Oh, I have? Did I know his husband, the young one, is four months older than I am?”

“I get those too.” Mycroft sighs.

“To top it all off I’ve got a meeting “upstairs” at ten. I have to run home for a shower and shave. And the whole time, this whole terrible morning, all I’ve wanted was 20 minutes alone with you. So I bought a couple of pastries and I flashed my badge and I came up to surprise you. Instead I get blindsided by Mycroft’s little helpers. Are you trying to kill yourself? I’d like a little warning.”

“No, of course not, you know I’d never…” Mycroft protests weakly.

“No, neither would your brother. But you both may mange it, anyhow. I can live without Sherlock. I could live without you, too. But I’d really rather not. I love you. I love you thin. I love you fat….”

“You love me when I’m an obnoxious prat?” Mycroft smirks.

“Then too,” Greg rises from Mycroft’s chair and moves around the desk to take a seat on the edge nearest Mycroft. “If you need to make changes for you, I support that. I’ll join you on whatever diet your doctor recommends. Hire a personal trainer named Rocco and I will do my very best not to seethe with jealousy.”

“Big, burly men named Rocco are really not my type.”

“Once upon a time, you would’ve said the same about aging detectives.”

“Portly, posh politicos ranked high on your list, I’m sure.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“No, you wouldn’t. So hire Rocco. I’d offer to be your jogging buddy if I thought we could reliably find an hour together each morning.”

“I don’t jog.”

“You could.”

“I don’t.”

“It wouldn’t be so bad. I could lose a few pounds myself. And people are always going on about endorphins and the runners high. It could be good. We’re both so busy, we’d have to share the shower when we were done. It would be the only logical solution.”

“You think we should prance around town in matching outfits? I can’t quite picture that.”

“Nor can I,” Lestrade admits, “but I prefer it to the pills.”

“I hear what you are saying.”

“You’ll stop?”

“It’s not just the weight…” Mycroft admits. “They keep me focused.”

“At what cost?”

“The chances are slim…”

“You’ve got two different kinds here, Mycroft. You’re double dosing? Mixing them?”

“Only when I travel.”

“Thanks for that, I sleep so well when you’re gone already.”

“I…” Mycroft sighs. “You’ll help?”

“Anything you need, anything at all.”

“I’m not jogging,” Mycroft sighs. He takes the bakery bag. “Maybe we could split one?”

“That would be fine,”

“So this suspect Dr. Watson shot this morning….” Mycroft begins as he carefully tears the pastry in two.

“I’d be having a completely different kind of upstairs meeting if he hadn’t.”

“So, all this lecturing me about…” Mycroft tears his half in half again and begins nibbling on the slightly smaller half.

Lestrade sighs, “I…”

Mycroft nods, “You need me to intervene on John’s behalf?”

“I’ve got this one,” Lestrade stands, “But if you expect him to be armed the next time…”

“You’d prefer he wasn’t?”

“Yes.”

“That doesn’t really work for me.”

“I know.”

“So, you know that I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe?”

Lestrade leans down and gives his partner a long, deep kiss. When he rights himself after a long moment he opens his palm to reveal a bottle of pills retrieved from Mycroft’s inside breast pocket, “Likewise.”


End file.
